Mike Hein addresses Ulster County chamber breakfast (PHOTOS)

PHOTOS: View photos of the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce breakfast here.

*****

KINGSTON — Mike Hein reworked the high points of his State of the County address for the local business community Wednesday at the monthly Ulster County Chamber of Commerce breakfast.

The Ulster County executive worked the room of more than 200 people for about an hour at the Garden Plaza Hotel.

It was a full-throated and stirring speech that included jokes, tears, a passionate review of his past accomplishments and future projects and a continuance of his often repeated narrative that his administration has reinvented county government despite Albany mandates.

“It's about balancing social responsibility with fiscal responsibility,” Hein said.

Hein signaled that county snow removal was going to go over budget this year, forcing the county to dip into its fund balance. That's on top of the $2 million that had not been collected from sales tax in December because of the drop in local sales tax collection to 3 percent. The excess snow has already put more than a 60 percent dent in the winter overtime budget, county officials said.

“To save a few dollars, I'd like to ask everyone to leave the salt on the table,” Hein joked.

Hein's 2014 budget takes $13.2 million from the fund balance, up $3.2 million from 2013 and leaving $7 million left in the general fund, according to a county Legislature analysis.

Hein also introduced a new initiative that didn't make it into his original State of the County address, a “Guaranteed Jobs” pilot program. The program would work with those looking to go to SUNY Ulster and BOCES and match them up with corporate partners in the advanced manufacturing fields, Hein said. He didn't specify what corporate partners.

Hein said if you complete the county-funded training program “there's a job waiting for you with more money” on the other side.

The privatization of Golden Hill nursing home and a similar program with the county's mental health department was characterized as a “right-sizing” of government by Hein, who said county government is a third smaller then when he arrived as the first county executive six years ago on the heels of a new charter.

“We had a bloated government. It was about nepotism and cronyism,” Hein said of the time before he arrived.

Hein also mentioned progress on his capital projects, including a home for homeless veterans he said will be open before July 4. He said his $6.2 million S.T.R.I.V.E. project to turn Sophie Finn Elementary School in Kingston into a SUNY Ulster satellite campus will break ground this year.

Even while taking digs at his nemesis Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, D-Kingston, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and Albany, Hein received a standing ovation.